Cabot’s Pueblo Museum in Desert Hot Springs offers tours and educational programs to teach the public about its namesake, the desert pioneer, adventurer, and artist Cabot Yerxa.
ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN
Art, architecture distinguished midcentury bank (The Desert Sun)
The Security First National Bank, which opened in Palm Springs in 1959, devoted considerable resources to making an architectural and artistic statement in its Palm Springs branch, which displayed bas relief plaques by Lawrence Tenney Stevens depicting “a pictorial record of the unfolding of this desert area from the dawn of prehistoric times, through the arrival of the first white settlers, to the present day.”
Riding a renaissance (Palm Springs Life)
Palm Springs Art Museum’s Architecture and Design Center on Oct. 5 opens Breaking All the Rules, an exhibition featuring the work of renowned San Francisco-based graphic and landscape designer Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, best known for her groundbreaking 1966 supergraphics at The Sea Ranch in Northern California.
Cody uncloaked (Palm Springs Life)
In October, a limited number of lucky Modernism Week Fall Preview attendees will be able to tour a home designed by William F. Cody that will receive landmark designation by the Indian Wells Historic Preservation Foundation that same month.
FESTIVALS & HERITAGE
We’re making a difference at Cabot’s Pueblo Museum (The Desert Sun)
In a newspaper commentary, Cabot’s executive director Irene Rodriguez discusses the museum’s educational initiatives and encourages residents to tour the historic site at upcoming Cultural Weekends.
Palm Springs Women’s Week celebrates lesbian culture thought (CV Independent)
The inaugural event, which takes place Sept. 29–Oct. 6 at multiple venues throughout the Coachella Valley, includes the return of the Women’s Jazz Festival and the L-Fund Golf Tournament.
Splash House wraps up insane summer in Palm Springs (The Nocturnal Times)
With a stacked lineup and an electric crowd, Splash House, the massive music-infused pool party that takes place at multiple venues in June and August, has taken its place as one of the summer’s hottest festivals in Southern California.
Former Goldenvoice exec opens Little Bar in Palm Desert (CV Weekly)
Skip Paige, the retired COO of Goldenvoice, which produces the Coachella and Stagecoach festivals, has opened a speakeasy-style watering hole that serves cocktails, wine, beer, and spirits as well lunch and late-night menus and weekend breakfast.
FILM
LGBTQ film fest rolls with greater diversity (CV Independent)
Cinema Diverse, Palm Springs’ LGBTQ film festival, is celebrating its 12th anniversary over two September weekends, featuring screenings of dramas, documentaries, and even web series. The festival features a number of trans stories and filmmakers, as well as a slate of films by and about women. Other films touch on immigration and gender non-conformity.
LITERARY
Local artists define desert beauty (Desert Magazine)
Author Tod Goldberg, poet and essayist Mercè Clay, weaver Janelle Pietrzak, poets Heather Cottom and Amie Fisher, musician Jesika Von Rabbit, journalists Karen Devine and Nathan Brown, and several more creative types reveal their perspective of the beautiful desert.
MUSIC
Avendia Music set to open in downtown Indio (CV Independent)
Members of the award-winning cover band Avenida Music have been hard at work transforming a vacant space in the heart of downtown Indio a venue for lessons, rehearsals, and more.
Using music to help special-needs kids communicate and connect (CV Independent)
Musician Jason Nutter, an educator and founder of Music Heals Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to getting musical instruments into the hands of autistic and special-needs students, helps parents and students recognize the positive role music can play in their lives of people.
Will Sturgeon: the desert’s best producer (CV Weekly)
The two-time Coachella Valley Music Award winner for Best Producer discusses his band, brightener, and running the Academy of Music Performance, better known as AMP.
Rapper takes reggaeton from the Coachella Valley to Colombia — and back (The Desert Sun)
In pursuit of the American dream, rapper J. Patron, a Colombia native, writes to celebrate Latino pride and address the struggles of immigrants, with or without legal status.
Idyllwild’s Jazz in the Pines to expand next summer (Palm Springs Life)
The festival has been expanded from its traditional three days to two weeks, and will be held from June 28 to July 11 to coincide with the Idyllwild Arts Summer Program when 70 jazz students will still be in school and able to participate.
THEATER AND STAGE
Podcast: Robbie Wayne of Desert Rose Playhouse (The Public Record)
Robbie Wayne, producing director of the Desert Rose Playhouse in Rancho Mirage, discusses the challenges of running a nonprofit community theater.
‘Confessions’ reprise gets residency at Hotel Zoso (Palm Springs Life)
Performer/storyteller Steven Fales brings his “new and improved, updated, unbridled and uninhibited” one-man show Confessions of a Mormon Boy to “Storytelling Tuesdays” at Hotel Zoso in Palm Springs.
Palm Canyon Theatre opens season with ‘Peter Pan’ (CV Independent)
Here’s the reason why it has taken more than 20 years for the downtown Palm Springs theater to put produce Peter Pan, the popular musical launching the new season Friday, Sept. 20.
Report: Audience loyalty a gap and growth area (American Theatre)
When it comes to building loyal relationships between patrons and theaters, arts organizations have untapped potential, according to a new report from arts software provider Spektrix.
VISUAL ART
Palm Springs Art Museum appoints new chief curator (Artforum)
Rochelle Steiner, the former associate director and chief curator of Vancouver Art Gallery and tenured professor and dean of the Roski School of Art & Design at University of Southern California, joined Palm Springs Art Museum on Sept. 3 as chief curator and director of curatorial affairs and programs.
Gerald Clarke: Tweaking the traditional at Palm Springs Art Museum (Palm Springs Life)
Native artists’ depictions of U.S. injustices date back to Wounded Knee, but Cahuilla Gerald Clarke’s clever twists prove worthy of a museum exhibition.
An untold backstory of the Agnes Pelton renaissance (California Desert Art)
Jan Rindfleisch, a former director of the Euphrat Gallery at De Anza College in Cupertino, California, recalls the journey that started when she went to uncover information about Cathedral City painter Agnes Pelton and other “neglected” artists.
Pete Salcido leads from the streets (Palm Springs Life)
The spirited 37-year-old street artist and owner of Flat Black Art Supply juggles supports artists with materials and opportunities, and also organizes Art Labs for kids and Art Walks for families.
A musician meets a First Nations carver (Palm Springs Life)
Music legend Herb Alpert has created totem sculptures after being inspired by the work of the Hunt family of Kwakiutl, and Sunnylands Center & Gardens has put them together in a new exhibition called Reach for the Sky: Tradition + Inspiration.
Student art wraps SunLine buses (Uken Report)
The desert’s transit agency has unveiled two busses wrapped in the winning artwork of two local students, following the fourth-annual competition that received almost 350 entries.
Portraying Joshua Tree National Park (Palm Springs Life)
The seventh annual Joshua Tree National Park Art Exposition, where artists present work depicting or inspired by the park’s beauty and cultural history, is underway at the 29 Palms Art Gallery and runs through Sept. 29.
